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number of years, would also have expected eye-contact in the situation, so that for
him the body movement did not appear only as hesitant, doubtful, reserved, and
reluctant, but also impolite. For the Danish subject (who grew up in Belgium), the
gesturing conveyed feeling of a reserved, shy, and timid person, who was polite and
did not want to impose his views on the others. For the two Filipinos, who had long
experience in living in the US, the gesture indicated, somewhat surprisingly,
communication that is certain, sure, strong, and confident. They would use similar
gesturing if confident and of control of the situation, but would also use more relaxed
signaling with smiling and not having hands on chin. The female participants from
Morocco, Catalonia, and Uzbekistan all considered the gesture fairly common, and
interpreted it as uncertain, irresolute, unsure, indecisive, perplexed, and baffled. The
Uzbek would also use it herself if not sure or could not decide what to do, while the
Catalan and Moroccan pointed out that the gesture would also convey meaning of
“doesn't matter”, “as you want”, “probably”. The young Moroccan lady also noted
that the unfinished sentence conveys the meaning that the speaker is not very sure of
the idea he's trying to convey, but that the gesture also signals that the person does
not care, and this is the way in which she would herself use the gesture.
Concerning the data collected in Sweden, an interesting tendency was that the four
Middle Eastern subjects (from Iran and Iraq), seem to interpret the gesture as a sign of
a sure, certain and confident speaker, like the Filipinos in the data collected in Japan.
One of the subjects wrote that the person on the video is certain about the topic and
shows certainty with a friendly gesture, while another wrote that the person tries to
emphasize what he is saying. These subjects would not use the gesture themselves
because it is regarded impolite and also shows lack of respect for older people, i.e. the
gesture is related to behaviour that is socially inacceptable. It is interesting how this
interpretation differs from that by the Japanese subjects: now the gesture is used but it
expresses inacceptable behaviour unlike in Japan where the gesture is not used at all.
The selection of opposite adjectives to describe the gesture may of course be due to
a confusion among the subjects concerning the meaning of the adjectives: e.g. one
subject had first marked the “confident” words in the questionnaire but changed them
to the “diffident” ones after realizing inconsistency in her markings and explanations.
However, it may also be related to the cultural tendency of interpreting the shoulder
shrug as conveying the speaker's self-confidence and certainty.
In fact, it is possible that that shoulder shrugging has different underlying
interpretations, and “lack of knowledge” associated with it can be interpreted in
different ways in different cultures. It can be interpreted as “it is not necessary to say
any more” or, as the Moroccan lady noted, “I don't care”, both of which can also be
associated with confidence and certainty. In this way, a shoulder shrug is understood
as a sign of non-continuation which can be associated with both lack of ability to
continue and lack of willingness to continue, and thus with uncertainty and
confidence/certainty (no need to continue), respectively. Perhaps in some cultures the
uncertainty interpretation is primarily focused, while in others the confidence
interpretation is primarily focused. Cultural conventions and the use of gestures in
general would certainly require more investigations here.
